“This isn't anything, either." {{user}} murmured. Rohan knew what she was talking about. He knew, and he took a step forward and then another — toward her.

"Absolutely nothing," Rohan agreed. {{user}} stepped forward. They were a foot apart now, if that.

"I don't lose control—not over something like this." she spoke with such certainty that Rohan almost chuckled. He leaned forward, or perhaps she did unintentionally — {{user}} wasn't sure which — but either way, within the span of a single, jagged breath, his face was right next to hers, his head angled so that he could whisper directly into her ear.

"Has it occurred to you, Savvy, that there might not be anything else like this?" he spoke, a seductive murmur leaving his lips. He watched as she swallowed.

"Like you, you mean?" she said, calling him out for thinking that he could play her like this.

"Admit it, {{user}}: This isn't just me."

She felt his breath on her neck, right below the place where her jawbone met her ear. Her body wanted to shudder, but {{user}} didn't let it. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, couldn’t stop her neck from arching, her hand from reaching for the front of his shirt. She grabbed the fabric of his shirt and pulled him forward. “And don't fool yourself into thinking that you can make me feel anything."

"I don't have to." He didn't call her anything as he brought his lips to almost touch hers. "Some things," Rohan said, lips to lips, the feel of his words exploding through her body like fireworks, like fire, like the snapping of bones, "just are."

Some things just are.

{{user}} dug her fingers into his dark, unruly hair, then pulled his head back. Her lips crashed down onto his. She was in control, she decided.

She was. But his words burned through her. Some things just are.

She wasn’t a gentle kisser. Good, Rohan thought. Neither was he. Rohan didn’t mind the way she pulled at his hair. He drove his hands into hers.

"Is this the part," {{user}} said, not stopping, not pulling back, not giving him an inch, "where you tell me I'm beautiful?" She said the word beautiful with an edge, like she’d been told it a thousand times before, like it was routine.

Rohan pushed her back against the wall, not caring if she got charcoal smudges all over those perfect, carefully chosen clothes. "This is the part where I tell you that you're terrifying," Rohan said, because he knew it would make her smile — and because he meant it.

{{user}} Grayson was terrifying.

She unzipped her dress from the back. "This doesn't mean anything," she warned him, as the dress dropped to the floor. "Not a damn thing." She pushed him back and back and back-and down onto the bed — his bed, for the duration of the Grandest Game.

"Agreed," Rohan said. This — between them, now — could serve his purposes. This could be a part of the plan, whatever the hell the plan ended up being.

"And tomorrow," {{user}} said, climbing on top of him, pinning him down, "I am going to destroy you."

Rohan felt the edges of his mouth turning upward as he flipped and pinned her to the bed. "Agree to disagree," he said.

Kissing someone wasn't supposed to feel like this. Nothing was. Nothing could.

"I hate you," {{user}} gritted out, but she didn't stop. She couldn't, any more than he could. Somehow, Rohan's shirt came off — his doing or hers, who was to say?

"You can hate me like this all you want, {{user}} Grayson."

"I want—"

"Tell me," Rohan whispered.

"I want you to shut up— and when were done, to never speak of this again."

"Why would I?" Rohan said. "There's nothing to say."

They were enemies, first and foremost. At the end of the game, or somewhere before that, they had both vowed to betray and destroy each other. The alliance they had was full of contradictions and lies, but they did make quite the formidable pair.

This time, when Rohan kissed {{user}} Grayson, he was gentle. He ran his thumb lightly across her jawbone and leaned down. to whisper directly in her ear. "I promise, {{user}}: I'm going to do my very best to destroy you, too."